Kuchma doubts that the OSCE police mission will be deployed in the Donbas
Ukraine's representative to the Trilateral Contact Group, Leonid Kuchma, doubts that it is possible to deploy an armed OSCE police mission in the Donbas, as he stated during a briefing in the Zakarpattia region.
"Hope is the last to die. 57 countries hope that they will vote for a police mission. There is no precedent... I see no solution for such a problem," he said.
Kuchma emphasized that the current OSCE monitoring mission does not monitor the withdrawal of forces in the agreed upon area in the Stanytsia Luhanska (the Luhansk region) at night.
“The withdrawal of forces in the Luhansk region should be monitored with OSCE cameras. There is nobody there at night, so there should at least be working cameras posted by the Special Monitoring Mission there. But they still wouldn’t work because the generator doesn’t work, or some other reason. It allows the ceasefire agreement to be violated at night and leads to both sides accusing the other of breaking it... There is no control – and here is the result... Thus, there is hope but, unfortunately... Russia agreed quickly (on the police mission), because they know they will need the agreement of 57 countries on this difficult decision,” - he added.
Kuchma also believes that at the moment sanctions against Russia are harmful to Russia but in the future will be very positive.
"We believe that Russia will survive these trade sanctions... Probably, I’m saying things which I shouldn’t. By imposing trade sanctions, we help Russia in a way that they soon realized - they should not just have a raw materials export role, and now they will focus their attention on new technologies and so on. They have financial problems – loans and debts. And in terms of trade sanctions – yes, these are big losses for Russia, but it will have more positives than negatives," he said.
Kuchma also noted that he believes that Ukraine will not be able to resolve the conflict in the Donbas by itself, and in responding to the question of which partner will be able to help, he said it depends on the political will of foreign countries, not on specific ones.
"In 1992 a group was established to address the Karabakh conflict, it included 10 countries, including America, France, Germany, and Italy. But the conflict has not been resolved yet. If these countries have no will, if the U.S.A. is not fully engaged in this issue, there will be no result. And if there is a game of peace and friendship between all countries, the local issues will be solved but Ukraine will stand aside, we will remain in the current state and go down quickly," he noted.
Ukraine asked the OSCE to deploy armed posts at the border with the Russian Federation. After that separatists threatened Ukraine with a "full-scale war into which all western countries will be brought." However, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia agreed with Ukraine’s proposal to deploy a police mission but only at the boundary line, not at the Russian-Ukrainian border.
Germany presided over the OSCE in 2016 and did not support Ukraine’s proposal regarding the deployment of an armed OSCE police mission in the Donbas.